Chapter 10 - THE THIRD SISTERClaire had never spoken Rebecca’s name because their father erased it from the family tree.
Rebecca was born with a heart defect. He believed a visibly ill daughter would weaken the Ashford public image, so he placed her inside a private medical residence.
Claire and Celeste learned of her existence as teenagers.
They visited in secret.
Rebecca became the only person both sisters trusted.
Years later, she managed Claire’s fertility treatment and helped Celeste become pregnant with one of Claire’s embryos.
Their plan was complicated but not malicious at first.
Claire feared Robert and the estate board would take control of her child.
Celeste feared her own branch would be erased.
Rebecca proposed raising the girls as sisters with shared legal protection until the trust could be challenged.
Then Thomas died.
The trust activated.
Every adult panicked.
Robert wanted one identifiable heiress.
Celeste wanted both children hidden.
Claire wanted one child returned immediately.
Rebecca wanted the entire family estate dismantled.
“What happened to her?” Sophia asked.
Claire looked toward the altar.
“She disappeared with the original locket.”
Robert said Rebecca contacted him once after the abduction.
She demanded that he dissolve the trust and transfer its assets into a public foundation.
He refused.
She threatened to reveal the hidden fertility procedures, the false death records, and the Ashford medical residences.
Robert began searching for the children.
“He found Sophia and Julie,” Ortiz said. “Why not Rebecca?”
“He found a body.”
Robert produced an old case photograph.
A burned vehicle had been discovered near the Mexican border. Rebecca’s medical bracelet was inside.
No DNA identification had been completed.
Another convenient death.
Julie examined the chapel wall.
One current photograph showed a woman leaving Hawthorne Institute the week before Celeste escaped.
The woman’s face was hidden beneath a hat, but she walked with a cane.
Claire recognized Rebecca’s posture.
“She’s alive.”
A handwritten note beneath the image read:
R moved C at 1:40. R entered S’s room at 2:17. J opened the safe at 2:08.
Someone had tracked every person that night.
The initials suggested Rebecca planned the confrontation.
She warned Robert about the teddy-bear camera.
She allowed Celeste to escape.
She guided Julie toward the case file.
She placed Claire close enough to reach the antique pistol.
The entire crisis had been orchestrated.
Sophia looked toward Julie.
“Why?”
“To gather everyone in one place,” Claire said.
A hidden speaker activated.
An older woman’s voice filled the chapel.
“Correct.”
Police raised their weapons.
Rebecca was watching remotely.
“Robert controlled the trust. Celeste controlled the truth. Claire controlled the daughters’ loyalty. Miriam controlled the hospital records.”
“And you controlled tonight,” Sophia said.
“Yes.”
“You put us in danger.”
“I placed cameras where danger already existed.”
“That is not the same as protecting us.”
Rebecca paused.
“No. It is not.”
She instructed police to open the chapel’s final cabinet.
Inside were the true transfer papers from the night of the births.
All three sisters had signed them.
Claire’s signature appeared beneath the instruction:
Remove both infants from the hospital before Robert obtains guardianship.
Sophia faced her.
“You approved the kidnapping.”
Claire looked as though she had been struck.
“I approved a protective transfer.”
The phrase sounded exactly like every other adult excuse.
Rebecca’s voice continued.
“Claire named the real kidnapper when she pointed away from Robert.”
The speaker clicked.
Then a concealed door opened behind the altar.
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Miriam stood inside the passage holding a second syringe against Julie’s neck.
👉 Claire had helped authorize the removal, but Miriam appeared ready to silence the daughter who could expose what happened afterward.
